Retirement: Outrage over 'work till 70'

A MOVE to extend the retirement age that will see people working into their seventies was under fierce attack last night.

RETIREMENT: The move to put the age up was under fierce attack last night []

Ministers were accused of making people “work until they drop” after stating they intend to raise the pension age to 66 within six years and continue increasing it in future.

But last night the burden of working longer appeared to be falling on the private sector only, with the Government refusing to say whether it will make changes to public sector workers’ secure, gold-plated pensions.

While the public sector will continue to enjoy taxpayer-funded pensions and a retirement age of 60, millions of hard-working Britons will have to toil away for at least an extra year until they can draw their state pension.

Experts last night hit out at the new measures for dramatically exposing the “pensions apartheid” that has grown up between what private and public sector workers can expect in retirement – and warned it would place unbearable burdens on future taxpayers. Former Downing Street adviser Ros Altmann said: “There is still a glaring divide between what
public sector workers are entitled to compared with everyone else.”

John Cridland, deputy director general of the CBI,
also hit out at the Government’s proposals, warning they would cause
“significant practical problems for employers”.

Angry
union leaders went further, accusing the Government of showing its
“class bias” just weeks after gaining power.

Bob
Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, said:
“The latest assault from the Government is work until you drop.

“If you are a rich banker with a private pension you
can sail off on your yacht at 55, but for working men and women
retirement will be pushed further and further over the horizon in a step
back to the days of Dickens.”

Paul Kenny,
general secretary of the GMB, said: “To force someone who has done a
lifetime of toil on building sites, farms or in factories to work until
they are 66 is completely unacceptable.”

And
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: “Workers who have to
rely on their state pension to make ends meet will have no option but to
carry on for another year, whatever the cost to their health, but the
better-off will be able to retire earlier.

“It’s
one rule for the rich, another for the poor.”

The
plan to raise the state pension age for men from 65 to 66 from 2016 –
nearly a decade earlier than the last Government was planning – was
announced by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

He also proposed to make it illegal for companies to
force staff to retire at 65.

The move is part
of a radical reform of pensions which will also require companies
automatically to enroll their employees in a scheme.Ministers are also
pressing ahead with a review of the state pension age, which is likely
to rise above 70 later this century.

Mr Duncan
Smith said: “We need to recognise that to meet the challenge of
providing an affordable, ­stable pensions system in a society with ever
increasing life expectancy, people will need to work longer. People are
living longer and healthier lives than ever, and the last thing we want
is to lose their skills and experience from the workplace due to an
arbitrary age limit.”

His announcement comes as
former Labour Cabinet minister John Hutton embarks on a review of public
sector pensions. As the head of the Independent Pensions Commission, he
has been tasked with identifying immediate savings by September and
full-scale reforms in time for next year’s Budget.

The new Office of Budget Responsibility has suggested
the public sector pension bill could more than double to £9billion a
year by 2015.

Mr Hutton is reportedly looking at
increasing workers’ contributions. A 2.5 per cent across the board rise
could be enough to save £3.2billion a year.

Under
Labour, retirement was due to equalise for men and women at 65 by 2020,
rise to 66 between 2024 and 2026, 67 between 2034 and 2036, and 68
between 2044 and 2046.

Life expectancy is
currently 77 for men and 81 for women, up from 71 for men and 77 for
women in 1985.

Shadow work and pensions
secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Increasing the state pension age in 2016
will hit people in their late 50s who will now be forced to rip up their
retirement plans and stand to lose around £8,000 as a result.”